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revjtanton writes "Amid all the discussion and argument about Gamestop's two-billion-dollar trade-in industry it seems Amazon.com is getting in on the action.
Like Gamestop, Amazon asks for the games to be in good condition, however they offer just a few more dollars for your discarded game (Gamestop listed Left 4 Dead for the 360 at $24 while Amazon had it at $26.50 trade-in value). Gamestop had already ruffled feathers in the developer and distribution communities with its practice of accepting used games; does Amazon joining the practice legitimize it?"

Although Gamestop already "ruffled features" in the dev and distribution communities, I'd say what really legitimizes the practice of buying and selling used games is the First Sale Doctrine [wikipedia.org].

That's like saying freedom of speech is only legitimate if everybody agrees with what you say... It's really quite different. It's legalized legitimacy is in the face of the fact that people disagree.

But they don't sell it to you, they "license" it. And if they keep saying it, it will be true. Just like me having a replica of something you also still have is "stealing" it from you when you still have it.

Whether you own it or not is one thing, but no publisher or developer has successfully argued that you do not have the right to resell a physical, original copy of a game.

They don't need to make the argument if they can prevent me from doing it by technical means instead. Its the whole "What good is a phone call if you are unable to speak?" situation.

I bought both portal and lost planet, in a box, with a disc, at a store. Do I have the right to resell them? Sure, do, but who ever buys them can't use them. The activation key is already used up, tied to my steam account.

And I can't move a title out of my steam account. Either I hand over the password/login and all the games in it, or I don't. There is no way to separate out a title and say, here, this isn't mine anymore, and re-enable the activation key for someone else.

Hell, per the EULA I can't even give the entire steam account away. (Not that I'd want to because I still want -some- of the games.)

So, even if I do have the right to resell them, what good is it? I can't meaningfully exercise it.

They don't need to make the argument if they can prevent me from doing it by technical means instead.

Thus far, they haven't done so with console games. Gamestop has only dealt in used console games for years, and a quick glance at amazon page shows they only appear to be reselling console games as well. TFS fails to mention this. Why do people constantly act as if PC gaming doesn't exist?

It would be a real shame if next gen, devs get their way and it moves all to digital downloads, specifically because then there's no way to buy a game used, and they will have effectively moved us to a leasing system.

if next gen, devs get their way and it moves all to digital downloads,

currently the cost of the new game is $60, used is $50. So first sale person costs $35 for the time they had the game, then it costs $25 for each additional cycle (through gamestop anyway)if downloaded games are $15 then all could win, because of the reduced costs associated, and additional sales... (or charge say $25 and allow the transfer of downloaded games)

Uh... not sure where you're getting those numbers, but that's innacurate. If you were to buy a game on release day for $60, open it, and then sell it right back, they'd put it on the shelf for $55. If you were to buy the game on release, wait two months, and then sell it back, they might put it at $50 if it was a good game that still had demand, $30 if it were an average game. A game that is 2 years old that is good, more like $20. If it's average (like madden,) it will be more like $5.

Well, if you've got a lot of time and/or money on your hands, sue them. Has this ever made it into the court system to have it determined what the law actually says on the subject? I would think that if the law says you are allowed to sell a copy of the game, it would be against that law to prevent the re-sale.

I would think that if the law says you are allowed to sell a copy of the game, it would be against that law to prevent the re-sale.

That's the problem. They won't stop me from selling it to a new owner. They've just set it up, so that there is no point, because the new owner can't do anything with it. There is nothing 'illegal' about it, and so there is really nothing to challenge them on.

Essentially, they are selling you a 'consumable activation ticket' with your media and box. You can resell it all you wan

The prevailing argument seems to be that, since re-selling is legal, you should be able to do it completely unregulated, regardless of the damage it does to the industries that provide you that content.

If the industry is being that damaged by it, something is wrong with the industry.

Should used bicycle sales be outlawed because it too significantly reduces the number of new customers. The classifieds are chock full of used mountain bikes, road bikes...

You willingly put those games into the same account with other games when you could have created a seperate steam account for each game or package you bought.

I had a steam account with the original Half-life and all of the mods. When Half-Life 2 came out I purchased the Silver Package (HL2 plus CS:S and DOD:S) and put it on a seperate account. I put Portal on a new account as well.

It sounds annoying but it is not much different from putting in a different disc or cartridge into your console.

It's called gifting. I bought Half Life 2 when it came out, but later bought the Orange Box. It notified me that I had one extra copy of HL2 and I was able to give it as a gift to one of my buddies.

OrangeBox was a partial exception. A one time special deal for Orange Box buyers who already had other components of the game. It is not generally true. (And it only applied to duplicate components... you couldn't gift features you only had one of.)

You can gift any game that you've purchased. Just have someone send you paypal, then gift the game to their username.

Why don't you try just that? You are wrong. It **doesn't work**.

You can buy a game and gift it (but you have to buy it 'as a gift' and you absolutely can't play it yourself first), and who ever receives it can't gift it again.

"A Steam gift purchase is a one-time transfer--after the recipient has activated and installed the game, it is a non-refundable game in his or her Steam games collection. Also note that you may only gift new purchases--you may not transfer games you already own. That'd be like wrapping up and presenting the toaster you've used every morning for the past year."

or further down:

"You can not gift games that were previously purchased on your Steam account to friends. Half-Life 2 and Half-Life 2: Episode One can be gifted when purchased as part of the Orange Box package. For more information about Orange Box gifting, please see..."

They couldn't be more clear that you can't transfer games you already own (OrangeBox duplicates being the ONLY exception.)

You can sell your Steam games. By saying otherwise you're just spreading FUD.

No you can't. Its you that is spreading misinformation. Sad thing is, I believe you genuinely believed you were right, which means their whole 'gifting' system marketing has completely deluded you into thinking it worked the way you thought it worked. But it doesn't, and you wouldn't have found out until you actually tried to gift one of you other used games and found you couldn't. At which point it is FAR to late to do anything about it.

I have spoken with support, argued with them live and via email over this on a number of occasions. I have actually TRIED to gift a in my account that isn't an orange box duplicate.

Don't trust me on this; do your own research. But unfortunately you WILL find that I am right.

"A Steam gift purchase is a one-time transfer--after the recipient has activated and installed the game, it is a non-refundable game in his or her Steam games collection. Also note that you may only gift new purchases--you may not transfer games you already own. That'd be like wrapping up and presenting the toaster you've used every morning for the past year."

Wow, that quote really steams me. Who are they to say that I can't gift a toaster I've used if I so choose. Seriously, the attitude that developers have about the "specialness" of software incenses me - why is software so special that it can only be rented (sorry, licensed), not owned?
I wish I had the coin to sue them over the First Sale Doctrine.

<SteamFiction>
Yea... you can't give your old toaster to people or sell it. That's just nasty. It would be like selling the house you lived in every day for the past five years. Why would you want to sell your old house? Ewww... everyone knows you're supposed to burn it to the gro

They can say whatever the fuck they want. A physical product is changing hands - only one person can use it at a time. Does this piss off publishers? Absolutely, but no more than my selling a used book pisses off book publishers. Will they try to stop it using technical means? Sure, and every other industry on the planet would love to do the same thing, it's just not feasible. Is it legal for them to do so? That's for the courts to decide when it's tested - I think probably not unless they also exclusiv

Will they try to stop it using technical means? Sure, and every other industry on the planet would love to do the same thing, it's just not feasible.

It's very feasible and very easy. First they will require you to create an account with them. Then they will require registering your serial number, which at that instant will fail to register at any other account.

To discourage the use of multiple accounts, they may make it difficult to create multiple ones (checking by credit card number for instance). They'll

But they don't sell it to you, they "license" it. And if they keep saying it, it will be true. Just like me having a replica of something you also still have is "stealing" it from you when you still have it.

Then perhaps it is time to stop licensing and start selling. And a "friend" as big as Amazon might be just the thing to stop the nonsense. going further and further.

But they don't sell it to you, they "license" it. And if they keep saying it, it will be true. Just like me having a replica of something you also still have is "stealing" it from you when you still have it.

Then perhaps it is time to stop licensing and start selling. And a "friend" as big as Amazon might be just the thing to stop the nonsense. going further and further.

I agree. That is why I don't "rent" software. It does, however, limit my choices considerably.

Think about it... game developer spends $10 million creating a game, first person buys one copy for $50, uploads it, everyone else gets theirs for free, game company is out $9,999,950. You really think you aren't stealing when you just grab a copy w/o paying for it?

Think about it... game developer spends $10 million creating a game, first person buys one copy for $50, uploads it, everyone else gets theirs for free, game company is out $9,999,950. You really think you aren't stealing when you just grab a copy w/o paying for it?

Yep. Just like you aren't stealing when you shoot someone in the head, or drive drunk, or piss in a policeman's hat. You are committing a crime, but it ain't stealing.

To continue your analogy, if game developer spends $10 million creating a game, first person buys one copy for $50, and writes a review saying it is utter crap, and has draconian DRM, so no one else buys it, and the company is out 9 mill, it still isn't stealing. And in this case, so far, it is still legal. But they are working on it.

Moderators must be high today. While your first line is true, it's not strictly relevant.

There is no clear cut line for what constitutes a loan, license or sale. Guidelines from the 9th circuit(Wise, 550 F.2d 1189) seem to indicate resale of a copyrighted work by a vendee who has sole control of the work can do so without permission from the copyright holder. The title of the agreement under which the sale or license occurs is not deterministic in revealing if the transaction constitutes a sale.

This is unlikely to apply to games purchased through Steam, since the copyrighted work still remains under control of the vendor. At most, the vendee would be liable to the copyright holder for breach of contract but the copyright act is not invoked. Even if the first sale doctrine were applicable, it doesn't require Steam to issue activation keys to the new owner of the copy.

Although Gamestop already "ruffled features" in the dev and distribution communities...

Forget about the ruffled feathers in the developers and distributors' community - Amazon folks should be more worried about the Furious Girlfriends Association who would hate to see their bf get cheaper versions of games they would play for the next 2 months.

Yeah, I hate not being able to access amazon.com from anywhere in the world...

You know, what they need is some kind of distributed network, with nodes interconnected with one another, kind of like a web. Yeah, a world wide web, that's the ticket!

I kid, I kid... You may have a point with people being unwilling to put up with the delay and uncertainty of dropping their used games in the mail, but I doubt it'll dampen the enthusiasm for Amazon's offering much.

The bigger problem is not being able to SEE the use product before your buy it...

If I'm looking for a game and I walk into Gamestop and see they have 2 used copies, 1 looks like it just came out of the shrink wrap and the other looks like a dog chewed up and pissed on the case before completely devouring the manual, they're the same price, guess which one I'm buying?

Amazon.com has the same 2 games for sale, except all I see is a stock image, guess which one I'm buying?... who knows it's a crap shoot.

Reselling games is recycling.. I usually just give 'em away to friends of mine who can't afford to get every game they want. They do the same to me sometimes. Just keeping the cycle going is a good thing. It's how the world's always worked, and humanity in general did ok out of it.
The current trend to force obsolescence/disposal is more than morally grey; it's pretty morally black.

If reselling my used and unwanted games falls into a moral gray area, we had better start torching any library in sight - the evil communist hideouts! And add yet another reason to hate on used car dealers.

Do you think that you'd be able to create a library today if they weren't already historically entrenched?

I've been buying and selling used games since 1990. It's never been illegal or morally gray. Some licences (which I no longer have to reference) said something along the lines of "you may only sell this game if you remove all copies".

The game publishers are only squawking about it because they, like the *AA, think that every used copy is a lost sale.

I buy used games because they charge too much for new games, and almost every new game is a crappy (albeit shinier) copy of a game that came out 10 years ago.

IMO Steam is a perfect alternative to selling/buying your games on physical media. While Steam does work against the used market, it provides sufficent 'pluses' to make up for loss.

You gain the ability to download the game to any computer and play it, as long as no other computers are logged in as you. You gain the ability to redownload the game as many times as you need. You gain access to things like ingame messenging, even if the game itself didn't have such a system.

The real problem will be, and it will be a short lived one I promise you, when companies decide to kill the physical media while simultaneously attempting to roll their own digitial distribution system rather than use one of the currently established platforms like Steam. Those games are going to be abandoned by customers and publishers faster than you can say Rumplestilskin.

Show me how Steam makes up for my inability to sell, lend or give away old unloved games ? I'm pretty sure I won't be playing Half Life again anytime soon, but I know a certain kid who played the everloving crap out of it after I gave him the box and disc.

The problem with the Steam model is they make too many assumptions:

1. You're going to love the game, and love it until the world dies

2. You're rich, and so is everyone you know, so nobody ever lends, trades or gives anything away second-hand.

Right now, I have six binders which hold ~200 CDs each sitting on the floor of my computer room these contain the CDs for every game and program I've bought since software was sold on CD.

I have four binders holding my DVD collection.

I have two binders holding my music collection.

I have two binders holding my console video game collection.

And I never, ever, plan on selling any of that to a used game company. Not because I have moral issues with it, but because for me, being able to go back and replay Dungeon Keeper 2 once every three years is worth the effort.

For me, Steam has no downside regarding the used game market. The upsides however, are immense. Every game I buy on Steam is that many less CDs and DVDs to store in those binders. It's one less item to OCD over trying to digitize because I'm worried that some day the original media will deteriorate and I won't be able to use it anymore.

Protect their revenue? They've already been payed. There's nothing to protect. Here's my little nugget... if the just lowered the prices of their games, they might actually make more money in volume. Sixty bucks is a lot of money. Even before I was married and had a lot of disposable income, I still balked at that price point. It's way beyond an impulse purchase. Buying a new game is like an investment requiring a lot of research. So these days I wait until the game price that I want drop like a ro

Exactly, let's not couch this in their semantics. This is not "hurting their revenue" any more than the used car industry "hurts" the new car industry. What the used game industry does hurt is their ability to sell as many mediocre games as they want, at the price they want. And only slightly.

This argument has been beaten to death, and still the publishers refuse to listen.

When a game costs $60, and 8 times out of 10 it turns out to be absolute garbage, that is astoundingly poor value for money. So statistically, I have to blow $300 to find one game I actually like, and it might last me a few weeks, at best a month or two before I'm completely sick of it. If I could break that down into some sort of "fun-hours per dollar" metric, it would make cocaine and alcohol seem cheap by comparison.

But... you can always sell your Steam account. Less than selling each game separatly, but it's still possible.

1) selling (even sharing) your steam account is against the eula. If that becomes widespread enough that they think its costing them enough money to worry about, they'll just start banning people over it.

2) you have to sell all your steam linked games or none of them. For most people that's a deal breaker. In my case I want to give one of my games away to a freind I know would enjoy it (nevermind se

On Amazon right now, there are 22 used copies of Left 4 Dead (Xbox 360) with the cheapest being $38.00. Why on earth would someone do this trade in when you could make at least ten more dollars just listing it on their own marketplace?

Because listing items is a serious PITA that's not worth the trouble? Between the options of:

A) Get money now for the thing you want to get rid ofB) Setup a web front, attract a buyer, work out delivery and payment details, package item properly, go to [UPS|FedEx|USPS] to send package, and then beg the buyer for feedback...I know which one most people would choose. B only makes sense if you plan to do a significant volume.

I'm not trying to make it sound insurmountable. Only a royal PITA. As I said, it's worth it if you have a lot of items to sell. It's not worth it if you want your money NOW or if you have very few items to sell.

In addition to the hassle of listing items and hoping for buyers that other posters mention, there is also the fact that Amazon takes a 15% commission, $0.99 per transaction fee, and $1.35 closing fee (source [amazon.com]). That $38 sale price translates into $29.96 for the seller (plus a small amount to cover shipping). $3.46 for a sure thing sale doesn't sound quite so bad.

Why on earth would someone do this trade in when you could make at least ten more dollars just listing it on their own marketplace?

I'm a gamer, but I also have a life. Kind of bits to have to post something on eBay or some other marketplace just to get rid of a game. Remember, you also have to ship the game, deal with money transfer, etc. May not be much to you, but I probably work more than 40hrs a week, and my free time is important to me. It's very convenient for me to just bring in any games I've stopped playing, and use them for trade when I buy a new game. For example, I recently went through my PSP/PS2/PS3 games, decided I wasn'

What were they thinking!! The next thing they'll do is try to sell used books or something.

It's a slippery slope I tell you. The next thing we'll have is stores trying to sell used books, used music CDs/tapes, used movies, etc. It's like the World is going to Hell in a hand basket! Don't they realize that this is going to mean the end of book authors, the end of musicians, and the end of film-makers!!!

Is anyone going to accept those for trade in? Because I have quite a few games I never play anymore and/or got burned on (doesn't work, faulty discs that the company wouldn't replace, game sucks balls, etc.) that I'd love to swap for something decent. But since they are "easier to copy than console games" *cough*bullshit*cough* I never seem to be able to do so.

Well, perhaps you should -- PC games are bought and sold there all the time.

An in general, CL and Ebay prices are significantly higher than what Gamestop pays for used games, and significantly lower than what they charge for used games. Cut out the middle man and you get more money for your games and get new ones for less.

Used cars are sold all the time. It has no bearing on new car sales. If those people could afford a new car, they would buy one.

I can afford new cars... but I always buy used. This is because the transportation value of the car (in terms of miles left before dead) decreases much more slowly than the dollar value (due to insanely high 1st-yr depreciation). At any rate, I buy used cars because I'm a cheapskate, not because I can't afford new ones.

Used cars are sold all the time. It has no bearing on new car sales. If those people could afford a new car, they would buy one.

I don't know what you're smoking, but used cars sales have a huge bearing on new car sales. It's even been in the news lately [cnn.com].

I can afford a new car, but I usually buy used cars because it saves me lots of money I can spend on other things.

And I feel that this is right, moral, and the way things should be. If Detroit wants to sell me a car instead, they should make cars that I'd want to buy, at prices I'd want to pay for them. If they can't make cars that people will buy, then they need to go ou

There is a much larger market for a $20-$30 game than a $50-$60 one. Even Steam has come out and said this. So let's see, if packaging, shipping and promotion work out to about $5 per unit, and you sell 100,000 at $60 each for a total profit of $5.5 million. But if you only sold them for $25 each, and the lower price increased units sold to 300,000, (reasonable expectation based on personal expectations and the info from Steam) then your total profit would be $6 million. Maybe it's just me, but it seems

"Right now, the software industry is failing in that aspect completely."

Well yeah, if we accept your back-of-the-napkin figures. But if the demand is less than 2x greater at $25, then they are right to leave it at $50. (Accepting, of course, your two-price idealization). All we're seeing is a disagreement between Valve and the rest of the PC games world over the true price elasticity of games.

The games industry is stupid in a lot of ways, but I think we have to trust that they do know how to manipulate us s

I've found that for online game trading Goozex [goozex.com] beats everything else by a mile. Buyers and sellers get the same price with only a $1 transaction fee to Goozex (plus you pay shipping if you're the seller--but free shippinig for buyers). Goozex then acts as an arbiter to resolve disputes (though I've yet to ever have one and from what I can tell by the forums, it seems pretty rare for everyone else too). If you try out a game and decide it's not your style (or if you simply beat it) you can get full money back minus the $1 fee and shipping as long as you didn't hold onto it so long that the value of the game has gone down.

To top it off, when you first start they give you a free $5 game (or $5 toward a more expensive game). Every other online site I've tried practically gives you peanuts for a game that they resell for much more.

I use gametz.com [gametz.com]. No transaction fee, just shipping. Two successful trades for me so far, great experience. As a noob, I send first, then they send. If both traders have good rep, they send at the same time. Beats the hell out of giving GameStop undeserved (IMO) money.

That site looks good but one reservation I have is how long it takes to find people to swap with. As they don't use points (they advertise this as a plus) the person you "sell" to has to have something you want to "buy".

I imagine if you only buy and sell the newest games within a single genre it probably isn't hard to find a match. However, I have quite a few older games and I have eclectic tastes in games (how often are the people who want to buy my old FPS Dreamcast game also the same people wanting to

Although Amazon may pay $2.00 more per game, is that going to make up for the shipping costs to send them the disc and get the new one? I'd love to see some pressure on GameStop to pay more for used games, but I don't think $2.00 is going to be enough.

Although Amazon may pay $2.00 more per game, is that going to make up for the shipping costs to send them the disc and get the new one?

Clicking the link in the summary tells me Amazon pay for shipping, and since most games cost more than $25 games you buy will be eligible for free super saver shipping (or if you're a Prime member, free 2 day shipping).

I bet that the next generation of consoles will have something to limit used game sales, and will push digital downloads much more than a physical media that can be easily traded.

What Amazon should do is publish the figures on how many of the used game sales were put right back in to new game sales and maybe it will convince the publishers that second hand sales is not necessarily as bad as they thought.

I bet that the next generation of consoles will have something to limit used game sales, and will push digital downloads much more than a physical media that can be easily traded.

That is definitely a safe bet. I would also guess that older gamers are going to be more dissatisfied with that, are going to buy less games because we can't buy used, but kids are going to continue buying just as much, leading to a focus on kids games and mediocre games we're already seeing on the wii.

The issue is not whether to legitimise it, the issue is whether the industry trying to kill the second hand market will succeed in getting enough corporate mindshare to have it thought of as a bad thing.

Every major high street game pc/console game retailer I have seen has a secondhand section.Amazon sell used books too, another practice that printed word distributers tried to kill off (a bizarre strategy in itself).

This limited activation DRM thing is part of the idea that secondhand game sales can be preve

As long as the games weren't copied before being resold, there is no issue here. Any game companies that object will look as stupid as the record companies that objected to stores buying and selling used CDs.

People trade their games to Gamestop because they don't want the hassle of selling them online. For instance, maybe they are just a kid, and their parents won't help, or maybe they just don't trust the internet.
If you are going to go to the hassle of putting it online and then shipping it, why not just put it on ebay and make three times what Amazon would give you? I did a quick search of a few games, and Amazon's trade in value is still about a third of what you could get on ebay.I think Amazon is missing the point.

People trade their games to Gamestop because they don't want the hassle of selling them online. For instance, maybe they are just a kid, and their parents won't help

I live in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The pawn shops, coin shops, and used DVD and video game shops around here use LeadsOnline [leadsonline.com], and they require a driver license or other state ID from someone age 18 or older. I wonder why it isn't the same where you live.

I cannot sell my "used" steam games to anyone for any price. This is not to say that steam doesn't have its benefits. But losing the ability to sell old games is a tough one to swallow.

And they typically charge the same as if I'd gotten some tangible assets I could resell even though I can't.

The ruckus being caused among developers and publishers exactly the same being caused among the RIAA/MPAA. The business model of making something intangible and selling copies of it printed on plastic discs for a premium is faltering towards obsolescence.

Basically they had a money printing machine, and now they're whining that people have found ways to cut into their fat profit margins. Forgive me if I just consider that another aspect of the market instead of sympathizing.

It takes money from game publishers every time you sell a used game. And forces them to charge even more for their games to make up the loss. It's about time we turn this problem around with an economic stimulus package for the game industry. How many billions, with a b, do we need to give for Duke Nukem Forever to be released and help stimulate the economy?

It takes money from game publishers every time you sell a used game. And forces them to charge even more for their games to make up the loss. It's about time we turn this problem around with an economic stimulus package for the game industry.

It's a real testament to the lack of imagination or intelligence in detroit that they didn't think to use this argument, blaming used car sales, when they were asking for a bailout.

To be more precise, it takes money from them every time they lose a sale, and if somebody buys your used game rather than buying a new one, they've lost a sale.

And what do I think about that? Boo hoo. They're selling a physical object that can be traded and sold. If they don't want this to happen, they should be selling something else -- a service of some sort perhaps? (And no, selling a game with a shrink wrapped license doesn't make it a service.)

Ultimately, that isn't really the point. If I buy something, it becomes my property, and I have the right to do anything I want with it, including resell(barring things that are illegal for other reasons, like murdering people with it). I don't have to prove that my doing so doesn't harm the original seller, it just isn't relevant.

You not giving me your money harms me; but that doesn't matter; because I don't have a right to your money. Used game sales might well harm developers; but that is irrelevant;